Reporters: We loathe 2012 campaign

Presidential campaigns are supposed to be the greatest show in American politics — infused with big ideas and historical import. Yet after 16 months enduring a Republican primary and then a two-man contest so far defined by gaffes, cynicism, knife-fights and rapid-fire news cycles, even the best political reporters want the whole thing over with.

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Yet another high-profile veteran campaign correspondent had his Howard Beale moment this week — mad as hell (or rather, sad as hell) and not willing to take it anymore — when Mark Leibovich lamented the devastating “joylessness” of the 2012 grind and wondered what the hell he was doing with his life.

“How am I ever going to get through it?” the chief national correspondent of The New York Times Magazine asked.

But his cri de coeur is just the latest primal scream in a campaign that is sending a whole generation of journalists to the confessional.

“This is worse than normal, a lot less fun, and it feels impossible for us to change the conversation,” Walter Shapiro, who has covered nine presidential campaigns and now writes for Yahoo News and Columbia Journalism Review, told POLITICO.

“People are feeling grateful that it’s almost over,” added Maggie Haberman, who covered the 2008 election for the New York Post and is covering the 2012 election for POLITICO. “There has been this ongoing lack of enthusiasm. Neither side seems to be enjoying this race — not the Democrats or the Republicans, and not the reporters.”

If there is one narrative to anchor what often feels like a plotless 2012 campaign, it is media disillusionment. Reporters feel like both campaigns have decided to run out the clock with limited press avails, distractions, and negative attacks, rather than run confident campaigns with bold policy platforms or lofty notions of hope and change — leaving the media with little to do but grind along covering the latest shallow, sensational item of the day.

“Until the candidates restore joy, it’s impossible for us to be joyful,” NBC News senior White House correspondent Chuck Todd told POLITICO. “The campaigns are trying so hard to manipulate us, to work the refs, to withhold access. If these candidates were comfortable, the campaign might be joyful to cover.”

“This is one big market-tested campaign, with no unknown candidate who could really blow it up, or be something different,” Leibovich said. “If the last campaign was the change campaign, this is the no-change campaign.”